Islamabad is elated, India
is miffed: the decision by the United States to
sell F-16 strike fighters to Pakistan involves much
more than a simple sale of arms
- important geostrategic undercurrents are at play involving
not only the Indian sub-continent, but also China.

Last Friday, Sanjaya Baru, spokesman for
India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, announced
that US President George W Bush had informed Singh
of the American decision to go ahead with the sale
of nuclear-capable Lockheed-Martin F-16 strike
fighter aircraft to Pakistan. The spokesman also
noted that the Indian leader conveyed to Bush
India's "great disappointment" and a message that
this move could have "negative consequences for
India's security environment".

A few
hours later, Bush administration officials in
Washington and elsewhere added more details to the
report, confirming that the mandatory notification
to Congress had been sent. Washington sources
say that Congress is unlikely to object to this
deal. Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh
Rashid Ahmed announced in Islamabad that the US
had essentially offered an unlimited number of
F-16s, and that the aircraft would be the newer C and
D versions (Block 50/52) which are more than
a generation ahead of Pakistan's current F-16
fleet. Ahmed also noted that the Pakistan Air
Force leadership would soon decide on the quantity
to request. Industry sources say that Pakistan
may initially order about 24 planes, with an option
to buy a significantly larger number in a few
years. Pakistan's current fleet of about 32 F-16s is
also likely to be upgraded.

To most South Asia observers, this decision was not
a surprise. Getting advanced F-16s and a package
to upgrade its existing old F-16 fleet has
always been on the Pakistani wish list since
President General Pervez Musharraf joined the
US-led coalition against terrorism in the
immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
With intense media speculation in the preceding
weeks, most news watchers felt a sense of
inevitability about the F-16 sale.

India 'disappointed' As
noted above, India's official reaction has been one
of disappointment. However, the Indian
Foreign Ministry convened a midnight press conference
on Friday night to spin the F-16 story. Spokesman
Navtej Sarna noted that during his conversation
with Singh, Bush offered a significant upgrade
of India-US strategic ties. Reports indicate that
the US has offered F/A-18 Hornet fighter planes to
India, which are considered to be more advanced
than F-16s.

But many Indian strategists
and former senior officials are not so sanguine.
Some note that the US has essentially offered a
tangible weapons system to Pakistan, while
offering some nice-sounding promises to India,
which may or may not develop into real gains.
Noting that one of the items seemingly on offer
was the sale of American nuclear power plants to
India, one observer asked - "Will Ms [Condoleezza]
Rice and her staff be willing to do the heavy
lifting in Congress and within the numerous
non-proliferation agencies within the American
bureaucracy to get approval for this? I don't
think so." India has energy needs now that cannot
be fulfilled by mere talks, he added.

Some
reports also suggest similar feelings in private
in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
The Hindu newspaper quoted unnamed MEA officials
as saying, "It is possible that some of the
promises may be transformed into reality. But at
this point, one cannot give them the benefit of
the doubt. Only tangible outcomes count, and that
is the transfer of the [F-16] planes to
Islamabad."

Interestingly, wire reports
mention that the US had offered the F-16 fighters
to India as well, though a State Department
official speaking on the background said that it
was up to India to decide if they wanted to buy
the F-16s, F/A-18s or aircraft from other
countries. Few Indian defense specialists believe
that there is any chance of India buying fighter
aircraft from the US, however. A report in the
Times of India earlier in March quoted Indian Air
Force officials as saying that there were too many
logistical and political barriers for the F-16s to
be considered seriously, even though they are
officially on the list of choices for the purpose
of a transparent tender process.

There
are others in the Indian strategic community,
however, who reject this type of reaction. G
Parthasarathy, former Indian ambassador to Pakistan, was
quoted as saying, "India cannot ignore the first-ever
US offer of co-production of a major weapons
system and platform and expanding cooperation in
nuclear energy and space." Dr Anupam Srivastava,
executive director of the South Asia Program of the
Center for International Trade and Security at
the University of Georgia and an expert on
India-US relations, concurs with this view, noting that
the very fact that an American administration
had offered to discuss the sale of nuclear
energy technology was significant, and that such a
move would have been nearly impossible in recent
years.

Strategic signalingSome
Indian and American observers feel that announcing
the approval of F-16s to Pakistan sends ambiguous
signals to the Pakistani leadership. They note
that given the track record of Musharraf, it is
likely that he will harden his stance in the
ongoing peace negotiations with India.

Dr
Peter Lavoy, director of the Center for
Contemporary Conflict at the US Naval Postgraduate
School in Monterrey, California, cautioned against
reading too much into the F-16 sale announcement.
He commented that there was an increasing sense
within the US administration that the Pakistan Air
Force was far behind India in terms of military
capability, and bolstering it with a small number
of F-16s could create more stability in South
Asia. It can be argued that a Pakistani military
that feels more secure with conventional weapons
is less likely to resort to using nuclear weapons,
he maintained. Lavoy also noted that at a
political level, the sale of F-16s brought closure
to a long chapter of mistrust and disappointment
in Pakistan, referring to the American move to
block a contracted transfer of F-16s in 1991 over
suspicions of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.

Indian and some Western
strategic analysts have a different take on this point.
One former senior Indian official noted to
this correspondent that he did not agree with the
American position that 30 to 40 F-16s were unlikely to
upset India's military position vis-a-vis Pakistan.
He said that such an argument missed the point: "When
it comes to provoking a war with India, Pakistan
has depended more on what it perceives it can get
away with rather than what its war-fighting
abilities really are." The argument here is that
the F-16s need not arrive in Pakistan for
Musharraf and other Pakistani military leaders to
consider taking aggressive military actions in the
disputed Kashmir region. Observers caution that
Pakistani leaders are unlikely to interpret the
F-16 deal in any manner other than as a
reiteration of Pakistan's indispensability to
Washington.

Another Western analyst, who has visited Pakistan many
times, noted to this author that soon after
Indian troops backed off war threats in
2002, Pakistani officials were thankful for the American
role in diffusing the crisis without Pakistani loss
of face. However, he was shocked that during
a later meeting with senior Pakistani army officers
he found that they had coaxed themselves into
believing that it was India's "cowardice" that
led to their pull-back. The analyst also noted with
alarm that many senior Pakistani military
strategists still subscribe to the theory that Pakistanis
are a "superior martial race" as opposed to the
largely Hindu Indian army, which they perceive to
be innately weak in resolve. The expert noted that with
such attitudes, all the Pakistanis need is a small
fillip to their morale and a perception of their
being indispensable to American interests in order
to start another military adventure with India.
"At the very least, major weapons sales could spur
the Pakistanis to be more aggressive with the use
of jihadi groups in Kashmir," the expert
maintained.

There are already signs of
this hardening of Pakistani stance. Speaking to
Pakistani Air Force cadets within hours of the
F-16 announcement, Pakistani Prime Minister
Shaukat Aziz stated that while Pakistan wanted
peace with its neighbors, "peace can be achieved
through force". On Sunday there were reports that
Musharraf had noted in response to an email query
to his website that India had to resolve the
Kashmir dispute "if it wants to avoid more
Kargils", referring to the 1999 Pakistani
intrusion into Indian-controlled Kashmir that
brought the region to the brink of full-scale war.

Some Indian observers expressed their
anger that the American government displayed poor
timing, either inadvertently or by design, in
announcing the F-16 sale at this juncture. "We
have Musharraf visiting New Delhi for talks and
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on a planned state
visit that is set to herald a new era in
Indo-Chinese ties. Couldn't the Americans have
waited a few more days, especially given that they
had seemingly made up their mind a good while ago
regarding the [F-16] sale?," fumed a former Indian
diplomat.

The China angleInterestingly, there are indications that the
US decision to offer F-16s to Pakistan may affect
that country's close ties with China. Pakistan
watchers have long pointed out the existence of
"pro-US" and "pro-China" lobbies within the
Pakistani military establishment. "For decades,
Pakistani military leaders, especially in the air
force, have considered American weapons as the
only ones good enough to be the spear-tip of
Pakistani military capability," a Pakistan-watcher
asserted, and added further, "Since the American
sanctions, the pro-American officers had been
losing the argument with the China-friendly ones
within the Pakistani Air Force. This [F-16] gift
turns the situation on its head."

As if to
confirm this, in a radio program on Friday,
Pakistan's Information Minister Ahmed noted that
the JF-17 fighter that China was developing in
cooperation with Pakistan had recently faced
uncertainties regarding its engine and other
components. Officially, the JF-17, or the FC-1 as
it is known in China, is equipped with an engine
from Russia's Klimov Corporation. But reports from
authoritative sources like Jane's Defence Weekly
note that Russia has not granted permission for
China to equip export versions of the FC-1 with
Klimov engines. Other reports have noted that
Pakistan Air Force officials expressed
dissatisfaction with the quality of Chinese
avionics and radar systems, preferring
European-made systems. However, given the
uncertainty in the lifting of the European Union's
weapons embargo on China, it is not clear if China
will be able to obtain source codes for European
sub-systems to be able to integrate them with a
Chinese plane.

On India's part, the F-16
deal could lead to a sidelining of those who are
favorable to the idea that India could be part of
an American-led alliance in Asia to contain
China's rapid rise to superpower status. There are
reports that India will sign a "friendship treaty"
with China where premier Wen makes his four-day
visit to the country, with verbiage "to ensure
that New Delhi does not become part of any
anti-China alliance". Wen's visit is also expected
to result in a treaty to set the framework for
resolving the lingering India-China border
dispute, and also some significant trade-related
agreements, including a free trade agreement,
which would be unprecedented in terms of the sheer
commercial volume between the two Asian giants.

This is bound to displease the
conservative elements in the Bush administration,
who are slowly coming around to the idea to treat
China as a strategic competitor, and who have
embarked on efforts with the European Union and
Japan to contain China's military expansion.
"India has nothing to gain by ganging up against
China, when the US is insensitive to India's
security interests," an Indian analyst said. The
analyst added that India would be under no
illusion that Pakistan's "evergreen friendship"
with China would weaken, but pointed out that the
Chinese were not going to miss the significance of
closer Pakistan-US ties and the potential negative
implications for China. "Beijing is not going to
like the idea of permanent American bases in
Pakistan, maybe even near Chinese territory. Also,
China is bound to be suspicious of a permanent
American naval presence at a time when it is
trying to get a foothold in that region with its
participation in the construction of Gwadar port
in Pakistan."

By this dramatic offering of
weapons to Pakistan and increased strategic ties
with India, the US may have displayed its "high
card" in terms of the geopolitical poker game in
the region. But it appears that India can still
one-up this move if it plays its cards right.

Kaushik Kapisthalam is a
freelance defense and strategic affairs analyst
based in the United States. He can be reached
atcontact@kapisthalam.com